A Memoir of Jane Austen by her nephew

CHAPTER XIII

The Last Work

Jane Austen was taken from us: how much unexhausted talent
perished with her, how largely she might yet have
contributed to the entertainment of her readers, if her life
had been prolonged, cannot be known; but it is certain that
the mine at which she had so long laboured was not worked
out, and that she was still diligently employed in
collecting fresh materials from it. Persuasion had
been finished in August 1816; some time was probably given
to correcting it for the press; but on the 27th of the
following January, according to the date on her own
manuscript, she began a new novel, and worked at it up to
the 17th of March. The chief part of this manuscript is
written in her usual firm and neat hand, but some of the
latter pages seem to have been first traced in pencil,
probably when she was too weak to sit long at her desk, and
written over in ink afterwards. The quantity produced does
not indicate any decline of power or industry, for in those
seven weeks twelve chapters had been completed. It is more
difficult to judge of the quality of a work so little
advanced. It had received no name; there was scarcely any
indication what the course of the story was to be, nor was
any heroine yet perceptible, who, like Fanny Price, or Anne
Elliot, might draw round her the sympathies of the reader.
Such an unfinished fragment cannot be presented to the
public; but I am persuaded that some of Jane Austen's
admirers will be glad to learn something about the latest
creations which were forming themselves in her mind; and
therefore, as some of the principal characters were already
sketched in with a vigorous hand, I will try to give an idea
of them, illustrated by extracts from the work.

The scene is laid at Sanditon, a village on the Sussex
coast, just struggling into notoriety as a bathing-place,
under the patronage of the two principal proprietors of the
parish, Mr Parker and Lady Denham.

Mr Parker was an amiable man, with more enthusiasm than
judgment, whose somewhat shallow mind overflowed with the
one idea of the prosperity of Sanditon, together with a
jealous contempt of the rival village of Brinshore, where a
similar attempt was going on. To the regret of his
much-enduring wife, he had left his family mansion, with all
its ancestral comforts of gardens, shrubberies, and shelter,
situated in a valley some miles inland, and had built a new
residence -- a Trafalgar House -- on the bare brow of the hill
overlooking Sanditon and the sea, exposed to every wind that
blows; but he will confess to no discomforts, nor suffer his
family to feel any from the change. The following extract
brings him before the reader, mounted on his hobby:

He wanted to secure the promise of a visit, and to get as
many of the family as his own house would hold to follow him
to Sanditon as soon as possible; and, healthy as all the
Heywoods undeniably were, he foresaw that every one of them
would be benefitted by the sea. He held it indeed as certain
that no person, however upheld for the present by fortuitous
aids of exercise and spirit in a semblance of health, could
be really in a state of secure and permanent health without
spending at least six weeks by the sea every year. The sea
air and sea-bathing together were nearly infallible; one or
other of them being a match for every disorder of the
stomach, the lungs, or the blood. They were anti-spasmodic,
anti-pulmonary, anti-bilious, and anti-rheumatic. Nobody
could catch cold by the sea; nobody wanted appetite by the
sea; nobody wanted spirits; nobody wanted strength. They
were healing, softening, relaxing, fortifying, and bracing,
seemingly just as was wanted; sometimes one, sometimes the
other. If the sea breeze failed, the sea-bath was the
certain corrective; and when bathing disagreed, the sea
breeze was evidently designed by nature for the cure. His
eloquence, however, could not prevail. Mr and Mrs Heywood
never left home... The maintenance, education, and fitting
out of fourteen children demanded a very quiet, settled,
careful course of life; and obliged them to be stationary
and healthy at Willingden. What prudence had at first
enjoined was now rendered pleasant by habit. They never left
home, and they had a gratification in saying so.

Lady Denham's was a very different character. She was a rich
vulgar widow, with a sharp but narrow mind, who cared for
the prosperity of Sanditon only so far as it might increase
the value of her own property. She is thus described:

Lady Denham had been a rich Miss Brereton, born to wealth,
but not to education. Her first husband had been a Mr
Hollis, a man of considerable property in the country, of
which a large share of the parish of Sanditon, with manor
and mansion-house, formed a part. He had been an elderly man
when she married him; her own age about thirty. Her motives
for such a match could be little understood at the distance
of forty years, but she had so well nursed and pleased Mr
Hollis that at his death he left her everything -- all his
estates, and all at her disposal. After a widowhood of some
years she had been induced to marry again. The late Sir
Harry Denham, of Denham Park, in the neighbourhood of
Sanditon, succeeded in removing her and her large income to
his own domains; but he could not succeed in the views of
permanently enriching his family which were attributed to
him. She had been too wary to put anything out of her own
power, and when, on Sir Harry's death, she returned again to
her own house at Sanditon, she was said to have made this
boast, 'that though she had got nothing but her title
from the family, yet she had given nothing for it.'
For the title it was to be supposed that she married.

Lady Denham was indeed a great lady, beyond the common wants
of society; for she had many thousands a year to bequeath,
and three distinct sets of people to be courted by: her own
relations, who might very reasonably wish for her original
thirty thousand pounds among them; the legal heirs of Mr
Hollis, who might hope to be more indebted to her
sense of justice than he had allowed them to be to
his; and those members of the Denham family for whom
her second husband had hoped to make a good bargain. By all
these, or by branches of them, she had, no doubt, been long
and still continued to be well attacked; and of these three
divisions Mr Parker did not hesitate to say that Mr Hollis's
kindred were the least in favour, and Sir Harry Denham's the
most. The former, he believed, had done themselves
irremediable harm by expressions of very unwise resentment
at the time of Mr Hollis's death: the latter, to the
advantage of being the remnant of a connection which she
certainly valued, joined those of having been known to her
from their childhood, and of being always at hand to pursue
their interests by seasonable attentions. But another
claimant was now to be taken into account: a young female
relation whom Lady Denham had been induced to receive into
her family. After having always protested against any such
addition, and often enjoyed the repeated defeat she had
given to every attempt of her own relations to introduce
'this young lady, or that young lady', as a companion at
Sanditon House, she had brought back with her from London
last Michaelmas a Miss Clara Brereton, who bid fair to vie
in favour with Sir Edward Denham, and to secure for herself
and her family that share of the accumulated property which
they had certainly the best right to inherit.

Lady Denham's character comes out in a conversation which
takes place at Mr Parker's tea-table.

The conversation turned entirely upon Sanditon, its present
number of visitants, and the chances of a good season. It
was evident that Lady Denham had more anxiety, more fears of
loss than her co-adjutor. She wanted to have the place fill
faster, and seemed to have many harassing apprehensions of
the lodgings being in some instances underlet. To a report
that a large boarding-school was expected she replies, 'Ah,
well, no harm in that. They will stay their six weeks, and
out of such a number who knows but some may be consumptive,
and want asses' milk; and I have two milch asses at this
very time. But perhaps the little Misses may hurt the
furniture. I hope they will have a good sharp governess to
look after them.' But she wholly disapproved of Mr Parker's
wish to secure the residence of a medical man amongst them.
'Why, what should we do with a doctor here? It would only be
encouraging our servants and the poor to fancy themselves
ill, if there was a doctor at hand. Oh, pray let us have
none of that tribe at Sanditon: we go on very well as we
are. There is the sea, and the downs, and my milch asses:
and I have told Mrs Whitby that if anybody enquires for a
chamber horse, they may be supplied at a fair rate (poor Mr
Hollis's chamber horse, as good as new); and what can people
want more? I have lived seventy good years in the world, and
never took physic, except twice: and never saw the face of a
doctor in all my life on my own account; and I really
believe if my poor dear Sir Harry had never seen one
neither, he would have been alive now. Ten fees, one after
another, did the men take who sent him out of the world. I
beseech you, Mr Parker, no doctors here.

This lady's character comes out more strongly in a
conversation with Mr Parker's guest, Miss Charlotte Heywood.
Sir Edward Denham with his sister Esther and Clara Brereton
have just left them.

Charlotte accepted an invitation from Lady Denham to remain
with her on the terrace, when the others adjourned to the
library. Lady Denham, like a true great lady, talked, and
talked only of her own concerns, and Charlotte listened.
Taking hold of Charlotte's arm with the ease of one who felt
that any notice from her was a favour, and communicative
from the same sense of importance, or from a natural love of
talking, she immediately said in a tone of great
satisfaction, and with a look of arch sagacity:

'Miss Esther wants me to invite her and her brother to spend
a week with me at Sanditon House, as I did last summer, but
I shan't. She has been trying to get round me every way with
her praise of this and her praise of that; but I saw what
she was about. I saw through it all. I am not very easily
taken in, my dear.'

Charlotte could think of nothing more harmless to be said
than the simple enquiry of, 'Sir Edward and Miss Denham?'

'Yes, my dear; my young folks, as I call them,
sometimes: for I take them very much by the hand, and had
them with me last summer, about this time, for a week -- from
Monday to Monday -- and very delighted and thankful they
were. For they are very good young people, my dear. I would
not have you think that I only notice them for poor dear Sir
Harry's sake. No, no; they are very deserving themselves,
or, trust me, they would not be so much in my company. I am
not the woman to help anybody blindfold. I always take care
to know what I am about, and who I have to deal with before
I stir a finger. I do not think I was ever overreached in my
life; and that is a good deal for a woman to say that has
been twice married. Poor dear Sir Harry (between ourselves)
thought at first to have got more, but (with a bit of a
sigh) he is gone, and we must not find fault with the dead.
Nobody could live happier together than us: and he was a
very honourable man, quite the gentleman, of ancient family;
and when he died I gave Sir Edward his gold watch.'

This was said with a look at her companion which implied its
right to produce a great impression; and seeing no rapturous
astonishment in Charlotte's countenance, she added quickly,

'He did not bequeath it to his nephew, my dear; it was no
bequest; it was not in the will. He only told me, and
that but once, that he should wish his nephew
to have his watch; but it need not have been binding, if I
had not chose it.'

'Yes, my dear; and it is not the only kind thing I have done
by him. I have been a very liberal friend to Sir Edward;
and, poor young man, he needs it bad enough. For, though I
am only the dowager, my dear, and he is the heir, things do
not stand between us in the way they usually do between
those two parties. Not a shilling do I receive from the
Denham estate. Sir Edward has no payments to make me.
He don't stand uppermost, believe me; it is I
that help him.'

Indeed! he is a very fine young man, and particularly
elegant in his address.'

This was said chiefly for the sake of saying something; but
Charlotte directly saw that it was laying her open to
suspicion, by Lady Denham's giving a shrewd glance at her,
and replying,

'Yes, yes; he's very well to look at; and it is to be hoped
that somebody of large fortune will think so; for Sir Edward
must marry for money. He and I often talk that matter
over. A handsome young man like him will go smirking and
smiling about, and paying girls compliments, but he knows he
must marry for money. And Sir Edward is a very steady
young man, in the main, and has got very good notions.'

'Sir Edward Denham,' said Charlotte, 'with such personal
advantages, may be almost sure of getting a woman of
fortune, if he chooses it.'

This glorious sentiment seemed quite to remove suspicion.

'Aye, my dear, that is very sensibly said; and if we could
but get a young heiress to Sanditon! But heiresses are
monstrous scarce! I do not think we have had an heiress
here, nor even a Co., since Sanditon has been a public
place. Families come after families, but, as far as I can
learn, it is not one in a hundred of them that have any real
property, landed or funded. An income, perhaps, but no
property. Clergymen, may be, or lawyers from town, or
half-pay officers, or widows with only a jointure; and what
good can such people do to anybody? Except just as they take
our empty houses, and (between ourselves) I think they are
great fools for not staying at home. Now, if we could get a
young heiress to be sent here for her health, and, as soon
as she got well, have her fall in love with Sir Edward! And
Miss Esther must marry somebody of fortune, too. She must
get a rich husband. Ah! young ladies that have no money are
very much to be pitied.' After a short pause: If Miss Esther
thinks to talk me into inviting them to come and stay at
Sanditon House, she will find herself mistaken. Matters are
altered with me since last summer, you know: I have Miss
Clara with me now, which makes a great difference. I should
not choose to have my two housemaids' time taken up all the
morning in dusting out bedrooms. They have Miss Clara's room
to put to rights, as well as mine, every day. If they had
hard work, they would want higher wages.'

Charlotte's feelings were divided between amusement and
indignation. She kept her countenance, and kept a civil
silence; but without attempting to listen any longer, and
only conscious that Lady Denham was still talking in the
same way, allowed her own thoughts to form themselves into
such meditation as this: 'She is thoroughly mean; I had no
expectation of any thing so bad. Mr Parker spoke too mildly
of her. He is too kind-hearted to see clearly, and their
very connection misleads him. He has persuaded her to engage
in the same speculation, and because they have so far the
same object in view, he fancies that she feels like him in
other things; but she is very, very mean. I can see no good
in her. Poor Miss Brereton! And it makes everybody mean
about her. This poor Sir Edward and his sister! how far
nature meant them to be respectable I cannot tell; but they
are obliged to be mean in their servility to her; and I am
mean, too, in giving her my attention with the appearance of
coinciding with her. Thus it is when rich people are
sordid.'

Mr Parker has two unmarried sisters of singular character.
They live together; Diana, the younger, always takes the
lead, and the elder follows in the same track. It is their
pleasure to fancy themselves invalids to a degree and in a
manner never experienced by others; but, from a state of
exquisite pain and utter prostration, Diana Parker can
always rise to be officious in the concerns of all her
acquaintance, and to make incredible exertions where they
are not wanted.

It would seem that they must be always either very busy for
the good of others, or else extremely ill themselves. Some
natural delicacy of constitution, in fact, with an
unfortunate turn for medicine, especially quack medicine,
had given them an early tendency at various times to various
disorders. The rest of their suffering was from their own
fancy, the love of distinction, and the love of the
wonderful. They had charitable hearts and many amiable
feelings; but a spirit of restless activity, and the glory
of doing more than anybody else, had a share in every
exertion of benevolence, and there was vanity in all they
did, as well as in all they endured.

These peculiarities come out in the following letter of
Diana Parker to her brother:

MY DEAR TOM,
We were much grieved at your accident, and if you had not
described yourself as having fallen into such very good
hands, I should have been with you at all hazards the day
after receipt of your letter, though it found me suffering
under a more severe attack than usual of my old grievance,
spasmodic bile, and hardly able to crawl from my bed to the
sofa. But how were you treated? Send me more particulars in
your next. If indeed a simple sprain, as you denominate it,
nothing would have been so judicious as friction -- friction
by the hand alone, supposing it could be applied
immediately. Two years ago I happened to be calling
on Mrs Sheldon, when her coachman sprained his foot, as he
was cleaning the carriage, and could hardly limp into the
house; but by the immediate use of friction alone, steadily
persevered in (I rubbed his ancle with my own hands for four
hours without intermission), he was well in three days ...
Pray never run into peril again in looking for an apothecary
on our account; for had you the most experienced man in his
line settled at Sanditon, it would be no recommendation to
us. We have entirely done with the whole medical tribe. We
have consulted physician after physician in vain, till we
are quite convinced that they can do nothing for us, and
that we must trust to our knowledge of our own wretched
constitutions for any relief; but if you think it advisable
for the interests of the place to get a medical man there, I
will undertake the commission with pleasure, and have no
doubt of succeeding. I could soon put the necessary irons in
the fire. As for getting to Sanditon myself, it is an
impossibility. I grieve to say that I cannot attempt it, but
my feelings tell me too plainly that in my present state the
sea air would probably be the death of me; and in truth I
doubt whether Susan's nerves would be equal to the effort.
She has been suffering much from headache, and six leeches a
day, for ten days together, relieve her so little that we
thought it right to change our measures; and being convinced
on examination that much of the evil lay in her gums, I
persuaded her to attack the disorder there. She has
accordingly had three teeth drawn, and is decidedly better;
but her nerves are a good deal deranged, she can only speak
in a whisper, and fainted away this morning on poor Arthur's
trying to suppress a cough.

Within a week of the date of this letter, in spite of the
impossibility of moving, and of the fatal effects to be
apprehended from the sea air, Diana Parker was at Sanditon
with her sister. She had flattered herself that by her own
indefatigable exertions, and by setting at work the agency
of many friends, she had induced two large families to take
houses at Sanditon. It was to expedite these politic views
that she came; and though she met with some disappointment
of her expectation, yet she did not suffer in health.

Such were some of the dramatis personae, ready
dressed and prepared for their parts. They are at least
original and unlike any that the author had produced before.
The success of the piece must have depended on the skill
with which these parts might be played; but few will be
inclined to distrust the skill of one who had so often
succeeded. If the author had lived to complete her work, it
is probable that these personages might have grown into as
mature an individuality of character, and have taken as
permanent a place amongst our familiar acquaintance, as Mr
Bennet, or John Thorpe, Mary Musgrove, or Aunt Norris
herself.

This presentation of A Memoir of Jane Austen by her nephew
is Copyright 2001 by P.J. LaBrocca.
It may not be copied, duplicated,
stored or transmitted in any form without written permission.
The text is in the public domain.